Browse by topic: News, Aviation, Shipping

Filters:

Further decarbonisation of transport through a shift to alternative fuels and electro-mobility forms a major part of the European Commission’s strategy for an ‘energy union’, unveiled last week. With transport being responsible for more than 30% of EU energy consumption and a quarter of emissions, the Commission said legislation on ‘decarbonising the transport sector, including an action plan on alternative fuels’ would be put forward in 2017.

The ‘Durban Platform’ may become as commonly known as the Kyoto Protocol, following a loose agreement at this month’s Durban climate change summit on a plan to work towards a global climate strategy. The plan is to agree the strategy by 2015 and for it to start in 2020.

Opinion By Jos Dings - T&E DirectorThis edition of the Bulletin is somewhat special. You will have seen it is the 200th, after exactly 20 years of operation. But it is also special because it is one of the few in which both aviation and shipping take centre stage. And because a divide between them is emerging. It is becoming increasingly clear that, while in the shipping sector the global community can actually take occasional steps forward, in aviation it is still the same old sad story of trying to stop progress from happening. Or even worse, trying to reverse it.

A group of environmental NGOs is urging the EU to make all possible effort to put bunker fuels back on the agenda of the next meeting of the United Nation
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will take place in Bangkok next April.

Opinion by Jos Dings - T&E Director
Did we miss something? Last year, the European Commission didn’t propose a single new legislative measure to clean up transport. To be fair, it has been spending most of its time worrying about the future of the Eurozone. As a result, for T&E this was the sort of year where seeds for smarter transport policy were sown. We’re optimistic that next year could bring a decent crop of positive changes.

A United Nations body set up after last year’s Copenhagen climate change summit has recommended increased taxes on carbon emissions and air and sea transport with the aim of raising $100 billion a year to help poorer nations fight global warming.

The gulf between the transport sector’s increased greenhouse gas emissions and cuts from other sectors grew again in 2008. And aviation and shipping’s share of transport emissions rose from 18% in 2007 to 24% in 2008. These are two findings from T&E’s latest report on transport emissions.

Annual data compiled by the EEA and submitted to the UNFCCC on the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions usually leave out emissions from international shipping and aviation (so-called “bunkers”).
To complement the 2008 data, T&E wrote an analysis which includes shipping and aviation figures and aims at clarifying the actual contribution of the transport sector to the EU’s CO2 emissions.

OpinionBy Bill Hemmings
- T&E Programme Manager A trip to the beautiful Canadian city of Montreal would normally be a pleasure, but few who attended this month’s general assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will remember their trip fondly. It’s tempting to thank one’s lucky stars that these assemblies only take place every three years, but the urgent need to combat aviation’s contribution to climate change makes that no blessing. The situation is as complicated as it is frustrating, but it’s important to take a step back from the wrangling in corridors and backrooms, and think clearly about what needs to be done, not just with aviation but also with its bedfellow, international shipping.

The world’s largest marine Emissions Control Area (ECA) has been approved by the International Maritime Organisation. Ships operating in waters off the North American coasts will be forced to use dramatically cleaner fuel and technology. The move is likely to make it easier for the EU to designate ECAs in European waters.